Modern jet aircraft require a stabilized approach when on “short final” (i.e., is within a few miles of the airport and is aligned with the runway) in order to be in a “safe to land” situation. Nine specific criteria for a stabilized approach, promulgated by the Flight Safety Foundation, are provided in tabular form in FIG. 1. General reference to these criteria, nominated criteria 1 through 9 as depicted in FIG. 1, will be made in the description of the invention that follows. Achieving a stabilized approach can be a challenging task, especially in certain circumstances such as adverse weather conditions, on-board malfunctions, low quality of air traffic control (ATC), bad crew cooperation, fatigue, visual illusions, inexperienced crew members, and others as will be known to those having ordinary skill in the art.
Currently, flight crews rely only on memorized manuals and acquired experience in performing approaches. If a stabilized approach is not performed, regulations require the crew to commence a “go-around” procedure. It is known that flight crews occasionally disobey the regulations, possibly in order to meet “on-time” metrics and/or possibly due to the costs associated with executing a “go-around” procedure. Further, flight crews in an unstabilized approach situation may believe that they will stabilize the aircraft in time for a safe landing.
There are several known incidents where flight crews did not detect an unstabilized approach prior to landing. A statement from Flight Safety Foundation reads as follows: “Not every un-stabilized approach ends up as a runway excursion, but almost every runway excursion starts as an un-stabilized approach.” It has been determined that an unstabilized approach was a causal factor in two thirds of all approach and landing accidents and incidents worldwide between 1984 and 1997. Since that time there has been a constant rise of traffic density around airports, extension of flight crew duty time, higher pressure on cost reductions. There has been no tool, or new technology, however, that could help flight crews to perform a safe approach and landing in terms of stabilization of the aircraft on final approach.
Another factor that has eluded solution in the art is the cost reduction that is achieved when an aircraft flies most of the approach with continuous speed reduction and, consequently, with minimum thrust. When flying an approach, currently flight crews try to “guess” the appropriate moment to extend the landing gear or flaps, while beneficially keeping the throttles on idle thrust to reduce fuel consumption. Because this estimate is not very precise, and because flight crews have other duties to attend to during the approach, they often act earlier than required by the situation, perhaps realizing that the benefit associated with a continuous deceleration is much smaller than costs for a potential go around procedure.
Another further issue that has eluded adequate solution in the art is noise abatement during the approach. With idle thrust, the aircraft would reduce noise in the corridor below the approach path. Again, the flight crew is typically not able to calculate the precise timing of flap and landing gear extension in such a way that throttles are on idle thrust for the most of the approach (until reaching the “final gate” for stabilization, where thrust needs to be above idle to ensure rapid acceleration in case of a potential go around). Due to this deficiency, there are several moments during the approach where throttles are moved forward and cause not only increased fuel consumption, but also undesirable noise.
Currently lacking in the art is an on-board display that is configured to guide the flight crew through the approach in order to reduce the chances of a “go-around,” increase safety, reduce fuel consumption, and reduce noise over the approach corridor. As such, it would be desirable to provide a display system and method on an aircraft for improving approach procedures. It would further be desirable to provide a display system and method that provides information for improved approach procedures to the flight crew as a single display. Other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.